Transformers: Fall of Cybertron Combaticons

Yeah bro, I love combining robots, they're so . . . AAAHHHH!!!!

Early in January, interesting news began to pop up regarding future Combiner Wars releases. Images, incomplete and unofficial at first, began appearing that seemed to be showing parts of two new combiner figures, Computron and Liokaiser. The Technobots have been a terribly kept secret, as there is a Scattershot figure coming to mass retail, and one of the Botcon toys for 2016 is Brawl with a drill. Really, only Hasbro brand hyper loyalists, the kind that religiously repeat mantras of Hasbro being some infallible entity, denied the eventuality of Computron, mainly because a year ago Hasbro said they weren’t planning one right now, which, in Hasbro sycophant, translates into ‘guaranteed, never, ever ever.’ 

Liokaiser is a surprise, the Japanese only gestalt that lots of fans love having zero American presence whatsoever. The leaked photos of box art got me ramblin’ at the wife again, this time about the interesting elements the original Liokaiser figures introduced to the world of transforming, merging robots. Things like the integrated hands and feet, elements that are always bemoaned by fans and collectors for having not been included in other combining figures, Combiner Wars included. People often cry out, “Liokasier has integrated hands; why can’t Hasbro do that? It was possible in the late 80’s; why not in 20**?” 

Hasbro did try it once. It was Fall of Cybertron Bruticus.

Clearly the most ambitious figures of the Fall of Cybertron line were the Combaticons, and their combined form of Bruticus. This was to be the first combiner toy following the bizarre and generally disliked Power Core Combiners line, which hadn’t really worked out as well as it sh/could have. But, that’s another story for another time. Prior to Power Core, the live action Devastator was the most recent combiner, and before that, the Unicron Trilogy featured a lot of combine-ing, but only Energon had actual combiners. FoC Bruticus was greeted with optimism, but almost as soon as pictures began to surface, that optimism faded. 

Oh boy. 

I almost don’t know where to start. 

Coffin Shaker: Abbath – Abbath

This is a feel good record. Abbath is, of course, former Immortal frontman Abbath, and here is his first solo album, entitled Abbath. It’s like a fragrance ad: Abbath, by Abbath. By Abbath, for Abbath. It’s not exactly Abbath’s first trek without the rest of Immortal, as there is the one-off project I, whose 2005 album Between Two Worlds is a great black ‘n roll affair that apparently few people actually know of, and, just like this record, included Gorgoroth bassist King ov Hell. I’d recommend it.

What’s happening on this album is much more in the vein of Immortal than I was. A legal dispute brought the end of Immortal, following years of inaction and no new music since 2009’s All Shall Fall. That was an Immortal album, and from what I understand, Abbath uses a number of things that would have ended up on a new Immortal album, which makes Abbath very much a record that sounds like Immortal. It has its faster parts, and its slower, doomier heavy parts. And for all of its’ old comfortable sameness, it is a fresh, fresh listen. 

Coffin Shaker: Megadeth – Dystopia

So, I am having a problem with this album. A number of problems, honestly, on a number of levels. I love Megadeth, and I always have. I’ve remained a faithful fan during their low points, their AOR phase(s) that seems to come and go, their commercialization attempts and the eventual failures of those attempts, and the subsequent attempts at returning to original form. 

Dystopia is reportedly one of those returns to form following an alleged failure with 2013’s Supercollider.  I didn’t think that album was a failure, but I am also pretty hard pressed to recall any of the songs from it, save the cover of Thin Lizzy’s “Cold Sweat” which I found outstanding. To be honest, trying to recall individual tracks from the last few Megadeth albums finds me drawing a blank, and that’s not a good segue for me to say that I’ve enjoyed most of the post-2000 output of the band. I once hurt my shoulder vigorously air guitaring to The System Has Failed.

 

Dystopia has everything that a post-2000 Megadeth album is required to have. Vic Rattlehead is on the cover (maybe that’s why people think Supercollider was a dud…..), there are political songs (“The Threat is Real,” “Dystopia’” “Lying in State,” “Post American World”) and there are tough guy, ‘I will kick your ass’ songs (“Look Who’s Talking”), there are songs that could go either way but whose real direction is kind of unclear (“The Emperor”). 

Transformers: Combiner Wars: Skywarp and Thundercracker

This review, like another one I did  a while back, is one that has been a long time coming. When I first started this blog, the then-recent Generations Jetfire was newly found at retail, and was the figure I thought I’d launch my Internet empire with. That never happened. Months later I got its retool/repaint Thundercracker at retail, and thought that was a good time to write on the mold. Months passed and last week I found Skywarp at a Toys R Us, and figured that now was finally the time, or else I should just wait until I get the Starscream version. So, here I go.

Star Wars: The Black Series: Captain Phasma

Taking a break from the long run of Transformers toys, let’s get back to some Star Wars toys for at least one entry. Let’s also look at Captain Phasma here for about two minutes; that way, we will have seen this picture of her for longer than she appeared in The Force Awakens, despite being the most heavily advertised of the new characters. All that advertising, and this guy ends up being the breakout fan favorite.

TR-8R

Yes, Phasma has appeared on everything to promote the recent movie; everything it seems, except the movie itself. While we knew nothing about the mysterious but promised to be awesome First Order officer in shiny armor, we now know about the same. But, it’s a trilogy, so there is no need to get all enraged. Certainly more information will become available over the course of the next two movies.

Transformers Cloud Starscream

On the 17^th of January, I present my final Christmas present write up. Look, it’s been a busy time at Coffin Central: been on vacation, did some traveling, struggled to keep up with all the celebrity deaths, and am like 2/3 through a second playthrough of Bloodborne. Maybe later is better than never.

Anyway, the final gift from my wife was a second figure from the Transformers Cloud line of Japanese repaints, one which keeps the Christmas Starscream tradition going as well. Cloud Starscream is a repaint of the Generations Doubledealer figure, itself a repaint and new heading of the Generations Blitzwing figure. Wait, two flawed Generations toys made into exclusives in consecutive reviews? Yes. But, much like Hellwarp, Starscream here does some things that make up for some of the base molds’ issues.

Transformers Cloud: Hellwarp

The second entry in my “What My Wife Got Me for Christmas” series is the first of two Transformers Cloud figures. This is a series of Japan-only repaints that take mostly recent Generations Voyager class figures and repaint them into someone else, attached to some kind of time traveling or dimension hopping storyline that is tough to follow in the severely Engrished comics that are included with the figures. The first one that I received is Hellwarp, an interesting character indeed.

Transformers Legends Slipstream

Moments ago I learned that I was not the owner of a winning Powerball ticket. Oh well.

That would make this a perfect time to FINALLY talk about some other Christmas gifts I received last month. As I’ve mentioned before, my wife always gets me some excellent Transformer that I’m after for Christmas, and this year was no different. Well, actually, it sort of was, as she got me not one, but three such figures. First up for review is the Japan-only Transformers Legends Slipstream.

Slipstream is a newer addition to the Transformers universe. A clone of sorts of Starscream from Transformers Animated, which is a series I never finished watching, Slipstream is a, or perhaps ‘the’ is better, female Seeker. In Animated, Starscreams’ personality is manifest in the forms of a number of “clones,” one of which, incredibly interestingly, is Slipstream. After causing a minor tremor in the fandom right after her introduction, Slipstream more or less fades into the background of the mythos, getting one figure – a Starscream repaint – via the TFCC. In 2013, Hasbro conducted a fan vote, the validity of which is debatable, to create a new character and toy that was made ‘by fans, for fans.’ The result was Windblade, as I’m sure we all know. Windblade would eventually get a figure and be shoehorned into the comics, and Slipstream is a repaint of that Windblade figure. 

Transformers: Combiner Wars Combaticon Brawl

Brawl is the final Deluxe class Combaticon, and the first and only entirely new mold on the team. He has a bad waist that I’m sure you’ve heard about online already.

Transformers Platinum Reissue Triple Changers Astrotrain and Blitzwing

So Christmas recently happened, which means I got a bunch of toys. Oh, how childhood fancy never ends, even when you’re 37. One gift I received was the reissue set of wildly colored because why not Astrotrain and Blitzwing.

Transformers: eHobby Generation 1 Ghost Starscream

So, this review is a very long time coming. Back in November I won an eBay auction for this figure, and tweeted pretty much immediately that I’d be writing on it soon. Then came Thanksgiving, and the end of the Fall semester, and then Christmas; I started writing up the other Ghost Starscream figures I own as a way of making a unified set of entries, and then I got Bloodborne, and Lemmy died, and we went to Toronto for a few days. So I have to try and get myself back on track.